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COPYRIGHT DEPOSlli 



FROM A FLAT HOUSE-TOP 



FROM A FLAT HOUSE-TOP 



BY 

CHARLOTTE HARDIN 




Boston 

The Four Seas Company 

1920 



Copyright, ip20, by 
The Four Seas Company 






The Four Seas Press 
Boston, Mass., U. S. A. 



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©CU601037 



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9 



TO 

My Mother 



The potter slaps the clay upon his wheel; his dreams 
are true, hut his hand has trembled; therefore we have 
left him hearing clumsy shapes and unlovely outlines. 

But come to the shop of the new alchemist; he has 
there the magic crucihle and the undying flame. Gather 
up the shards of your hroken vessels; in each one there 
lies a golden grain. Out of the hroken clay he will re- 
tain only what is fine ; the fragments will then he 
shards in truth, and the thread of gold contained in 
them will he returned to you as a hright elixir. For 
some there will be but a drop; for others, a goblet full. 
Some will gulp down their share and go off drunk with 
dreaming; others will carry the goblets home in their 
bosoms and sip them secretly in a quiet place. But 
there will he something for all; each life holds a grain 
of beauty. 

Bring them, then — your outworn loves, your dead 
passions, your long- past glimpses of peace ; the green 
of old meadows and the echoes of far-off music. They 
shall he returned to you re-born out of the crucible of 
the new alchemist. 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Wind Scents -13 

Chanson Louis XIII 15 

Musings of a Pre-Raphaelite Painter ... 17 

A Bent Twig Springing Upward 19 

The Dark Lover 20 

The Singing Shell 21 

The Giver of the Gift Divine 22 

When I Went in Sandals 23 

PippA IN THE Factory 24 

Honey From Afar 26 

The Fairy Woods . . 2.y 

Summer Loves 29 

A Fragile Snatch of Passing Song .... 31 

Anne of Geierstein 32 

[9] 



CONTENTS 

Page 

The Blaze 33 

I Lost the Colors of the Dawn 34 

The Night Wind 35 

To the Most Loved 36 

Harp Music 37 

A Fantasy of Dance — At the Orpheum . . 39 

I Was the Smallest Fairy 41 

The Honey Bee 43 

The Lesser Loves 45 

O Someone in the Deep, Deep Wood ... 46 

The Refusal 47 

The Sunbeam 50 

Subterranean 51 

Too Long I Sat at Spartan Boards .... 52 

The Carpet 53 

Passion in the Ballet — The Favorite Slave . 55 

Caryatid — Rodin 57 

From a Flat House-top 59 

[10] 



FROM A FLAT HOUSE-TOP 



FROM A FLAT HOUSE-TOP 



WIND SCENTS 

The songs that the wind has sung, 
The scents that the wind has flung 
From flowers where they clung 
But yesterday — 
These are too sweet to linger or delay. 

The songs that haunt the past, 

The fragrances too faint to last — 

Will they never come 

Wearily, happily home 

To the flowers where they clung. 

To the heart of the wind that has sung. 

Forever to live in the air, 

Forever there? 

The dreams that are past and gone ! 
Is there not one 
That will ever come 
Wearily, happily home ? 

[13] 



Must they forever fade 

Into the passing shade 

With all the passing fragrance that has clung 

In long dead flowers, 

And, with the dying hours. 

Die with the songs the dreaming wind has sung? 



[14] 



CHANSON LOUIS XIII. 

Nay, I cannot love you so — 

Now you choose a dragging measure, 

Full of pauses, stepping slow 

At the flying heels of pleasure. 

Come from out your high-walled gloom, 

Let us make a holiday 

In the meadow's pleasant room 

Where the sliding shadows play. 

Here in golden splendor high 

Butterfly loves butterfly : 

Will they live and love forever? — 

Never, never! 

Still and still you sigh and plead, 
Still and still I love you. 
While the little breezes speed 
Butterflies above you. 
Still you love me, while the sun 
Stands so high above us : 
Butterflies, when day is done, 
Who will think to love us? 

While there's azure in the sky 
Butterfly loves butterfly. 
Fluttered pinions in the air 
Catch the sunlight, hold it there. 
Over the soft-lifting breeze 
Now the drooping branches sigh — 

[15] 



Love me now ! Beneath the trees 

Spread the Hghtest couch of love, 

But above 

Let there be no canopy 

To obscure the shining skies 

Or the shadows, flitting by, 

Of the dancing butterflies. 

Still and still you sigh and plead, 
Still and still I love you. 
While the little breezes speed 
Butterflies above you. 
Still you love me, while the sun 
Stands so high above us : 
Butterflies, when day is done. 
Who will think to love us ? 



[i6] 



MUSINGS OF A PRE-RAPHAELITE PAINTER 

High in the trees 

He balances — 

Gay-hearted oriole! Fluttering down 

Willful and leaf-light with leaves that drift, 

Now clear in a rift 

Of branch- fringed sky, 

Now dim on the brown 

Of russet bark — 

And hark! 

Rare and shy 

His notes begin. 

First sweet and thin. 

Held to a rippling swell that ebbs again — 

O for the wax that dulled the sirens' strain ! 

Birds and a tree-top! Such a combination 

Leaves far too much to the imagination. 

Here are my colors : how one's thoughts run riot 
When any noise disturbs the woodland quiet ! 
— What silver-gray of lichens— tiny trees 
That branch and fork like any forest brother ; 
Moist green of mosses : deep soft velvets, these, 
Tipped with a jester's cap and bells of coral; 
And one that grows supine ; red-cupped, another : 
A creamy tassel fallen from the sorrel : 
A spreading fungus, colored orange, gold. 
Saffron, all shades of yellow, metal-cold, 

[17] 



Or warm with shifting sunHght — what a study 
Beside the toadstool pulp that quivers ruddy ! 

Another strain! 

Up, up he's borne upon his own refrain ! 

Rollicking tree-tops 

Nodding together, 

Gladness of bird song, 

Blue-skied fair weather ! 

What if the day stops? 

Days are so long! 

Under the warm shades 

Gay fancies throng. 

What if the day fades? 

After a night 

Tree-tops and birdsong 

Welcome the light — 

Rollicking tree-tops 

Nodding together, 

Gladness of birdsong, 

Blue-skied fair weather ! 

He's gone! Oh what a flight, imagination! 

Now to my moss and its configuration. 



[i8] 



A bent twig springing upward 
From under the weight of a bird 
Nods to me over the hedges 
That the fluttered wings have stirred. 

Far afield in the noontide 
The bird has sought his will : 
Still lie the fluttered hedges, 
And my answering heart is still. 

But far in the dazzling sunlight 
A-wing with a joyous bird, 
A thought of mine goes straying 
That my heart has never heard. 



[19] 



THE DARK LOVER 

When I heard rhymes of a dark lover 
I thought they meant his face — 
Browned from the sun — a gypsy rover 
In some far tropic place. 

When I first saw my own dark lover 
I knew they meant his eyes, 
Where as at night I could discover 
Unending mysteries. 

And now when love is done and over 
I know too true and well 
There's many and many a darker lover 
More than the rhymes can tell. 



[20] 



THE SINGING SHELL 

I name you, love, and all my words 
Are murmurous, a leafy throng : 
The magic of your memory 
Sets all my words to song. 

Mine but the fragile shell of verse : 
But hearken where, deep hid from view, 
The secret murmur of your life 
In music speaks anew. 



[21] 



THE GIVER OF THE GIFT DIVINE 

The giver of a tawdry gift 
Goes strident through the market-place, 
And cries his own munificence, 
That men may see and know his face. 

But when the deeper twiUght falls 
The giver of the gift divine 
Comes through the shadow of the trees 
And parts the tangle of the vine. 

And by all dim and devious ways 
Steals on to the Beloved's place, 
And leaves his offering, and flies, 
Lest the Beloved see his face. 



[22] 



When I went in sandals 
I never felt the dew; 
I wrapped my cloak about me 
And caught no hint of you. 

Cloakless, without sandals — 
The very rain seems new, 
And every twig that brushes me 
Has known the touch of you. 



[23] 



PIPPA IN THE FACTORY 

I who would sing a song 

Must turn a machine. 

Out in the country 

The world's growing green — 

Turn again, turn again, creaky machine! 

Round and round — 

The grass on the ground 

Is growing in rings, in rings, they say. 

For long ago when the fields were new 

The fairies traced them and blessed them with dew 

And kissed them with freshness and crowned them 

with green — 
O faster and faster, my humming machine! 

Hum, hum, like the bees 

In the locust trees 

Where the bunches of flowers heavy with sweet 

Drip through the branches to carpet my feet. 

And higher than all — 

A wanderer rare — 

There's a song in the sunlight, 

A rhyme in the air. 

It floats away, floats away over the green — 

Catch it, catch it, my whirring machine ! 

Sing of the sky 

When the ceiling is low : 

Sing the birds homing, 

Sing the night coming 

[24] 



Where night-flowers blow. 

Bring a soft air, 

Blow a sweet air 

Out of the open, the night's darkened green — 

Catch the air, hold it, 

Weave and enfold it — 

Filter the day through my dream's golden screen- 

O faster and faster, my happy machine! 



[25] 



HONEY FROM AFAR 

Here stood the miracle of lofty growth — 

A blossomed tree, 

Whose fragrant crown above the crests of green 

We roamed the woods to see. 

Here the wild bees had made a feasting-place, 
And led us from afar 

To the white circle of new-fallen blooms — 
Each bloom a fallen star. 

And now, though storms have stripped the blossomed 

crown, 
The thunder-blasted tree 

Still holds a life that stirs its blackened depths. 
Made sweet with memory. 

The home of bees ! The hollow tree holds sweets 
From many a flowered star. 
All the warm meadows' summer fragrances, 
And honey from afar. 



[26] 



THE FAIRY WOODS 

Ringed by the sunny-meadowed hills 
Where the slow cattle pass, 
The fairy woods have sprung to life 
And checked the creeping grass. 

Young, as the fairy world is young, 
The slender pine-trees grow: 
The wind throughout their little leaves 
Pipes a faint elfin flow. 

And the warm earth, thin-carpeted, 
Still knows the touch of spring. 
Nor through the summer quite forgets 
The lore of blossoming. 

The tiny heather-bells of pink 
And silvery bells of blue. 
Ringing on airy leafless stems. 
Clouded with lingering dew, 

Make a soft mist of lavender 
That floats above the moss, 
And surges over the faint track 
Where the slow cattle cross. 

The very wind is delicate, 
Fitfully, gayly bold. 
And delicate the streaks of sun 
That spread their whiter gold. 

[27] 



Now for one last long magic day 
I drowse in the pale sun. 
Another day, another year, 
What fairies have begun 

Nature will take. Her ample hand 
Will ripen through the earth 
Into a fuller richer growth 
This miracle of birth. 

But for my deep-enchanted eyes 
The elfin bells still blow: 
Forever delicate and strange 
The fairy woods shall grow. 



[28] 



SUMMER LOVES 

When I left you, Jeannie, 
You had grown un'.dnd ; 
Jeannie, Jeannie, was the tune 
Running in my mind. 

Round and round, the Uttle road 
Turns upon the hill : 
Jeannie, Jeannie, runs the song 
Of the mountain rill. 

All along the water's edge 
Wildf lowers are aflame: 
Yesterday I met a man 
Who told me each one's name. 

Sweet lavender and jewel- weed — 
(Another little song, 
Jeannie, Jeannie, followed me 
The water's edge along). 

Sun-drops, asters, goldenrod — 
The chorus sweeter grew — 
Jeannie, they were chiming in 
To turn the air from you ! 

Meadow-queen and Queen Anne's lace- 
It needed nothing more — 
I could not sing of simple Jean 
When queens bowed at my door! 

[29] 



Now *'J^^^^i^" follows me no more: 
Ten lovelier names I know; 
My summer loves ! I know their hearts, 
The warm fields where they blow. 

And when they lie in wintry sleep 
Should Jeannie prove unkind, 
The sweet names of my summer loves 
Will sing her out of mind ! 



[30] 



A fragile snatch of passing song 
Half heard, half guessed, 
Floats on the dimming twilight air. 
And love lies hushed at rest. 

Like soft rain through the tender leaves 
The sweet airs blend, 
So faint that fragrance seems to start 
Where sound has met its end. 

Unseen the rain dies in the night — 
Unheard, O song. 

Breathe through the darkness, lest love wake, 
And sorrow over-long. 



[31] 



ANNE OF GEIERSTEIN 

There was a youth who died too young, 
Who spent the silver of his tongue 
In scorn of laws and ancient days, 
And cut his feet on stony ways. 

On his last day and days before, 
He kept his couch, to rise no more. 
With all his old intentness fine 
Perusing "Anne of Geierstein." 

It was a volume old and red. 

His, when his little curly head 

Nodded above it by the flame, 

Long past the hour when bedtime came. 

Some far-off memories he sought — 
Some healing the old volume brought : 
But for me, hell's white places shine 
When I see "Anne of Geierstein." 



[32] 



THE BLAZE 

He called us in, and set ablaze 

At once, the fuel of his days. 

We cried him back, but more and more 

He heaped on his full lifetime's store. 

Wild with the glory of the blaze, 
He cast in all his future days 
To flame an aureole of red 
About his beauteous brow and head. 

And we — we cowered in the shade, 
And stretched our hands half out, afraid : 
Some thrust a hand into the blaze. 
But could not save his future days. 

All this was long ago. Our pile, 
With prudent care, will last awhile. 
We stir our comfortable blaze, 
And speak of wanning life's last days. 

But there are some whose folded hands 
Bear the white scars of long-spent brands 
These see forever the swift grace 
Of that bright head and beauteous face. 



[33] 



/ lost the colors of the dawn : 
The noonday hours, wheeling by, 
Brought ripened fruit and golden grain 
And shimmer of a far hot sky. 

At last, at last the day was gone, 
The long time spent : and from the west 
I caught a freshened look of life 
And knew that dying is the best. 



[34] 



THE NIGHT WIND 

Only the topmost boughs are stirred, 

The dark leaves lie asleep. 

Only the spring's new branches leap 

To the wind's thrilling word. 

Unstirred 

Sleeps the half-withered leaf 

Into whose dreamings creep 

Faint breathings of an air too brief 

That died with spring. 

The topmost branches swing 

To the wind's whispering — 

The dark leaves lie asleep. 



[35] 



TO THE MOST LOVED 

Rumored upon the startled morn 
That saw the primal day-spring rise, 
And trembling with the latest dawn 
That stirs the still pool of the skies — 

Love still shall weave its mystic rune 
In tapestries as richly spun 
As when on some far golden noon 
The women sang to Solomon. 

Each poignant strain of beauty leaves 
Another strain unsung, untrove: 
My love binds up its perfect sheaves 
And yet remains a different love. 

Now, since your sheaves are bound with gold. 
And since your eyes reflect the spring, 
You link new treasure to the old. 
And ripened fruit to blossoming. 

The primal day repeats its boon, 
And rumored love is newly born; 
And through the mystic golden noon 
A woman sings to Solomon. 



[36] 



HARP MUSIC 

Behind the open golden strings 

Hang crimson velvet curtainings, 

With heavy fringe of tarnished gold 

To hold austere each fluted fold — 

Harp- strings lie open to the day, 

And where they will the runlets stray, 

Within, without the curtained gloom. 

And floating through the music-room 

Like jets of fountain spray at play — 

Harp music is a run-away! 

Its tinkling notes disdain to hoard 

Their sweetness with a sounding-board; 

Lavish they spring from each plucked string, 

A fountain plume set shimmering 

To opalescent changes fleet: — 

A gay patrol rides down the street : 

A Spanish lover canters by: 

A garland from the Lorelei 

Flings down a handful of faint bloom — 

And there are flowers in the room. 

And if the player, wise and fair, 

Wear blue or green, and if her hair 

Be yellow — by the amber strings 

So easily a mermaid sings ! 

The notes, like pearls on golden cords. 

Drip from the richness of their hoards : 

And swift and clear, a mermaid's tear, 

A strange sea-sorrow, half a fear, 

[37] 



Whispers its fleeting fairy woe — 
A mermaid's harp might whisper so ! 

Harp-strings are tuned to fairy play- 
Harp-strings He open to the day — 
Harp music is a run-away ! 



[38] 



A FANTASY OF DANCE 

AT THE ORPHEUM 

Where the httle poplar-trees 
Two by two, in mimic state, 
Cast their shadows ebonese 
On the arching iron gate — 

Here, where antique vases hold 
Quaintest box-trees, and austere 
Figures of the nymphs of old 
From the formal hedges peer — 

Here two sisters, dancing slow 
In the twilight's dim retreat. 
Circle, as the shadows grow, 
Dip, advance on sandalled feet. 

Playing, at the fountain's brink, 
Hide and seek, to measure due: 
One enscarfed in lilac-pink. 
One enveiled in silver-blue. 

Pose, repose, and pirouette — 
Memory, enchanted muse. 
Weaves the gentle air's regret 
On a spinet worn with use. 

[39] 



Now the circling pair retreat 
In and out the poplar trees, 
Drooping o'er their sandalled feet, 
Blowing kisses to the breeze. 

Through the curtain's velvet gloom. 
Memory, enchanted muse. 
Show me still the garden's room. 
While a spinet worn with use 

Quavers from a yellowed page 
Its belated roundelay 
Of a happy Golden Age 
Where the gentle sisters play — 

Circling round the fountain's brink- 
Hide and seek to measure due. 
One enscarfed in lilac-pink. 
One enveiled in silver-blue. 



[40] 



/ was the smallest fairy 

In a world unknown to men : 

You were a rugged giant 

Who lived in the Northland fen. 

Alone in the sunny lowlands, 
I spent the years at play. 
And listened for the thunder 
That came from far away — 

The echo of your footsteps. 
The far-off breaking shock : 
I was the snowy marble. 
And you, the granite rock. 

A hundred years of echo, 
And then the dreamed-of fear: 
I hid in the roots of grasses 
For I knew that you were near. 

The crashing of your footsteps 
Rolled to the lowland plain; 
You had come to seek the fairy. 
But you had come in vain. 

For down in the roots of grasses 
Your great hands could not reach : 
You, with your feet of thunder. 
And your tongue devoid of speech! 

[41] 



/ trembled in my safety 
And yearned to your mighty sound, 
And longed to be held and captured 
Yet I lay close to the ground. 

And at last your raging footsteps 
Rolled back to the Northland fen 
For a hundred years of echo, 
And so returned again. 



[42] 



THE HONEY BEE 

Shall I, with such an alchemy, 
From unen joyed delight 
Transmute a richer treasury 
And seal it in the night? 
What flowers' deepest fragrances 
Know but my searching zest, 
Unspent in wanton vagrancies 
Upon their satin breast? 

For one brief day of long ago 

I chose the rover's pace. 

When spring's full pools in overflow 

Mirrored the world's new face. 

The world was new, my heart was new, 

And where the brown bees fly 

I robbed them of their honey-dew. 

And mocked their husbandry. 

With ceaseless toil unending springs 
Wipe out the one day's grace: 
The windy horn of autumn rings 
Through June's abandoned place. 
I sit beside my honey-comb 
And ponder every cell : 
The ruddy hearthstone flame of home 
Glows in each amber well. 

[43] 



Ah, tender hands that break the store 
To sweeten every sense 
With garnered flowers that bloomed of yore- 
Take your inheritance ! 
This is your frail life's nourishment — 
The richness of my years, — 
To stay your young astonishment 
And mellow all your fears. 

So I, with such an alchemy, 
From unenjoyed delight 
Fashion for you a treasury 
Against the winter's blight. 
My flowers' deepest fragrances 
Their ardors round you fling. 
And spend my unspent vagrancies 
To keep eternal spring! 



[44j 



THE LESSER LOVES. 

If I have loved the many loves, 
Nor held me unto straiter ways, 
O call me fickle as the sea 
And liken me to April days — 

For as the sudden shower falls 
From April skies of sunny hue, 
The lesser loves, the many loves 
Leave Heaven its own unclouded blue. 

The shallow wavelets kiss the shore 
And dimple in advancing bands 
To print a fragile memory 
Upon innumerable sands : 

But far beyond their shifting play 
The depths know no uncertainty : 
The ocean's heart forevermore 
Gathers a deep tranquility. 

O liken me to lesser waves 
And let me flatter every shore. 
And gather, like the ocean's heart. 
Depth upon depth forevermore ! 



[45] 



someone in the deep, deep wood 
Has set me here and there 
A cup of wine, a cup of dew, 
Bubble d with fairy air. 

And till I drink the last sweet drop 
And drain the last cup dry, 
I'm, driven through the deep, deep wood. 
And home and all goes by. 



[46] 



THE REFUSAL. 

I am an opening bud 
Beneath the sun's warm flood, 
A blossom for the pleasure of the sun: 
The inevitable rose 
As blindly grows, 

As blindly withers when his light is done. 
Yet when on other flowers 
He spends his golden hours, 
She lays aside her state, 
Not desolate : 
I crave another fate. 
Ah, think you not the spray 
That blooms and blooms each May 
Wearies of wantoning 
With every air of spring? 
Or that the cold green birth 
Slow-pricking through the earth 
Leaves many a sweeter thing 
Beneath the spring? 
Think you that I would flower 
To every passing shower, 
To every sunbeam be the answering rose? 
And yet — how shall I say 
I will not love in May? — 
— Here is the song they sing when winter 
goes : — 

[47] 



Blossom, blossom, blossom — 
Now I kiss your mouth — 
Bloom and bloom, my flower, 
Blossom like the South, 
When the wind of April 
Blowing over May 
Blows the winter branches 
Into rosy spray — 
Blows the winter fancies 
Far and far away. 

I am a closing flower. 

I give your love its hour. 

Your sun its day: 

No other sun shall shine 

On love of mine : 

I will not bloom and bloom to every May. 

The blood that sullen flows 

To redden beauty's rose 

Bears an unwilling heat 

Warm from its deep retreat. 

So many a sweeter thing 

Lies underneath the spring! 

Dim in the winter's lap. 

Low with the deadened sap. 

Unmoved of urging need, 

Life lies asleep in seed. 

Remembering 

No wantonness of spring. 

And so I too would lie 

[48] 



Soft, dreamlessly, 

Like any withered rose. 

And yet — how shall I say 

I should not hear in May 

The little song they sing when winter goes ? 

Blossom, blossom, blossom — 
Now I kiss your mouth — 
Bloom and bloom, my flower, 
Blossom like the South, 
When the wind of April 
Blowing over May, 
Blows the winter branches 
Into rosy spray — 
Blows the winter fancies 
Far and far away. 



[49] 



THE SUNBEAM 

You are the flight of countless wings 
Of gossamer and vair — 
A rainbow stream, a fairy shaft 
Through my imprisoned air. 

And where is now my strip of sky, 
My lattice-chequered tree? — 
O too much pain, to gather you 
In one bright unity! 



[so] 



SUBTERRANEAN 

All that sings itself to sleep 
In the twilight sunken deep, 
All that changes winter tears 
To hidden jewels of the years — 

This is all I do not live, 
What I could give and never give. 
Deepest in my soul they lie — 
Wings that never knew the sky. 

Deepest in my soul are spent 
Unshot arrows, bows unbent: 
Dimly substanced in the earth, 
The golden crown awaits its birth. 



[SI] 



Too long I sat at Spartan boards 

And drank from flagons bare, 

And 'Crushed the sunny-blossomed wreaths 

That you were used to wear. 

For other labor than your praise 
I left you for a space; 
And now the winds of all the world 
Know not your hiding place. 



tS2] 



THE CARPET 

Undulate, 

Spring before your master, 

Dancer ! 

Do you know that the new carpet 

Spreading its thick colors in homage at his feet 

Renders imperfect homage, rebels at all its 

edges ? 
— Leap in, clack the chains that weight your 

heavy ceinture. 
Flash the shining harness laced over your 

flesh. 
Lift your cinctured arms : the music rises. 

Wonderful, wonder,ful carpet ! 
Spirals of crimson awhirl 
Under the stamping clanking 
Feet of the dancing girl — 

Shimmering wavering parrots 
Clutching their perches of pearl 
Crushed by the crinkle-soled, pink-stained 
Feet of the dancing girl ! 

Clack, clack, 

The parrots are safe — 

They are near the centre. 

The weight of the harness is nothing. 

The body bears it lightly. 

Leaping in the air. 

[53] 



The drum, the drum — 

Spirals of bronze lead outward 

To the border of bursting grapes : 

The race begins. 

Be still, wreathe with your arms. 

Bend from your naked middle, 

Bend backward, brush the grapes with your 
fingers, 

Push out your breasts, nippled with cups of 
metal. 

Laced with cobweb chains of gold: 

The plumes of your helmet recover. 

Sweep forward, sweep the floor before you. 

Clack — the music — the grapes must be ad- 
ventured. 

Backward a step — presently you will stumble. 

At the corner vine meets vine 

Twisting together, 

Creeping out to the floor. 

Running off into air at the point. 

At the corner 

The dancer runs from the carpet 

Over the escaping tendrils. 

Plunges from the nearest window 

Flashing through the sunlight 

Into the courtyard pool: 

The weight of her harness drags her under. 

In harems too there are obsessions. 
[54] 



PASSION IN THE BALLET 

THE FAVORITE SLAVE 

He crouches in the corridor 

And hears upon the marble floor 

The men-at-arms step out, step out, 

The heavy cushions tossed about: 

And in his ecstasy he hears 

A step approach. The darkness clears, 

The key has turned, the curtain falls, 

And in his ecstasy he crawls 

Over the squares of black and white, 

And sees — and crouches at the sight — 

Her long slim flanks, her crimson vest. 

Her bright head with bright metal dressed. 

He flinches from her lowered gaze 

And waits : the languid music stays. 

Upon his knee, upon his feet, — 
He hears a reedy summons sweet. 
His fingers at her ankles cling, 
His fingers at her sandal-string — 
In measured time, to measured beat. 
Pluck at the bangles of her feet. 
Now, as the horns cry out "Arise !" 
His hands caress her flattened thighs, 
And, led by flutes, slip up her arms — 
In measure to her measured charms. 
[55] 



Too long, too long the flutes delay ! 
Should but a single viol play — 
A spring of tightened muscle — then — 
Her lips ! — The flutes begin again. 

The time has changed. A beating doom 
Throbs from the 'cello. In the room 
The master stands. The drums begin — 
The men-at-arms step in, step in. 
The thunder breaks — Now, viols, now! — 
His lips leap writhing to her brow — 

Death, or a darkened corridor 
Unchains the mimic from the floor, 
From the cold music's meted strain — 
Approach, conceded with a chain. 



[S6] 



CARYATID 



RODIN 



My hands hold up my breasts, 

Push up my crushed shoulder — 

How shall I bear this weight? 

(I have asked you only for bread). 

You have cut me with knives, 

You have lashed my skin with fine long whips 

of thread; 
There is no breath in my throat. 
(I have not asked for the wine.) 
I had thought of knives that would sunder 

bonds, 
But your knives have cut my flesh. 
I had thought to toss aside this rock, 
To stretch out my arms, to breathe deep and 

full. 
I would cast on my tunic and be with the 

others under the broad shade-tree. 

Is this not for me? 

Then hold back your knives, 

Cast aside the lashes. 

(I ask no longer for bread.) 

Give me strength. 

Let me bear up the rock 

Insensate as its bulk. 

Let me become as my burden. 

[57] 



Give me strength — 
The strength of stone — 
To strain eternally, 
Without desire, 
Without dream. 



[58] 



FROM A FLAT HOUSE-TOP 

1. 

Finally away from the people, 

Finally alone in the dark, 

High up on the roof 

With my tree close to me ! 

Now the tears can flow, 

Now arms can be stretched out to the sky. 

The heart can break in sobs. 

O at last to be 

Free alike from life and immortality! 

To hear no more voices 

Save the gentle voice of the wind 

Stirring the leaves — 

To whisper to the stars, 

And droop, mysterious and silent. 

In the still heat of noon: 

To have no more kisses. 

But the slipping touch of the rain : 

And to feel no more the vagueness of longing, 

But to suffer patiently through drought! 

O my tree ! 

At last, at last to be 

Free alike from life and immortality! 



[59] 



II. 

In winter we buy warmth, 

In summer, ice. 

Who can change the seasons? 

Love, that I would flee. 

Love watches for me in the door-ways, 

Dogging my footsteps ; 

His hands are hot upon me. 

O neighbor woman, 

You who are longing for love, 

Lay your cold hands on my forehead: 

Stretch out your cold hands to love, 

Entreat him, and he will leave us ; 

And you, who hate peace. 

Shall be at peace. — 

But how shall I avoid the door- ways? 



[60] 



III. 

On the roof next to mine 

My neighbor plays the mandoUn; 

But his wife does not sing. 

Such a Httle space Ues between us, 

Not enough to hold a tree: — 

A thin black shaft of deepest night, 

Easily stepped over. 

But insurmountable without a prelude. 

Lacking the prelude, 

The player lacks a voice. 

And my voice is silent. 

Is your silent wife beside you, neighbor? 

Send her down into the street. 

And I will step over the well of night 

And lend you what you need: — 

I will lend you my voice first. 



t6i] 



IV. 



I will not meet you on the street — 
Your mandolin, your mandolin 
Can tell me all I long to know, 
A little truth, and lies too sweet 
To verify upon the street. 
Upon the street your mouth is cold, 
Your eyes are weary in the light, 
Your voice is harsher than the fall 
Of tinkling music in the night. 
Be voice as soft as voice can be. 
It cannot murmur like my tree. 
Ah, could I step across the night 
An apparition to your sight — 
Your mouth might smile less wearily. 
And something in you answer me 
Unlike the man I will not meet 
Upon the street. 
Your mandolin's faint tinkle thin 
Can tell me all I long to know — 
A Httle truth, and lies too sweet 
To verify upon the street. 



[62] 



V. 



Tree that I must leave! 

I have come at last 

To tell you three things : — 

There are other roofs under the stars — 

There are men whose eyes are not weary- 

And there is a love whose hands 

Are cool as night's dripping fountains. 

Now all the words that I have spoken 

Into the darkness 

Vanish with the night wind : — 

There is but one word 

That stars the universe. 

O my tree! 

At last, at last to be 

Made free of life and immortality! 



[63] 



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